A Reverence for Trees - The ancient olive of Acharavi

4 May 2014

Trees are one of the great joys of my life but I know most people don’t give them a second look. I must confess that I do get upset when majestic trees are cut down. Why? Because their great presence and wisdom cannot easily be replaced, and also because it is usually unnecessary. I shall thus attempt to get more of you motivated about all of the wonderful trees we have in our world around us in the hope that they can enrich your life, and a few more just might be saved. I’ll start with the humble olive, of which our fair city of Adelaide has some wonderful publicly owned groves well over 150 years old! There are many fantastic olives across the globe that I will return to, but this first one on the Greek island of Corfu was quite something. From what I have read the Venetians introduced olives to Corfu around 500 years ago, and I imagine that this one in the church yard in the little hamlet of Acharavi is every bit that old! How could you not venerate this fine old specimen, full of holes but still strong and bearing olives! With a little care and attention such as this one receives, trees can live for thousands of years, even olive trees!

So next time you are about and about, give a tree a second glance, you might be pleasantly surprised.